Therapy Session
by cmaddict
Summary: After The Janus List, Megan decides to go to therapy to work through her issues.  But will a psychologist meeting a psychologist be a disaster, or a blessing in disguise?


**A/N: So I felt like Megan had a lot of issues last season that didn't get resolved. And I thought it would be fun to write a psychologist-meets-psychologist story, being a psych major. Anyways, hope you guys like it!**

Megan Reeves took a deep breath as the elevator doors slid open soundlessly, revealing a long hall with glass doors down either side. Never, in her entire life, did she think she'd be in a position like this. _Come on, Reeves,_ she told herself, placing one hand on the side of the elevator to keep it from closing, _you're an FBI agent. This can't be so bad._

She hesitantly stepped out of the elevator and cringed at the sound of the doors sliding shut behind her. There was no going back now. Megan could hear Don's laughing voice now. _"Aren't you the one that said therapy was great? 'Give a little, get a lot back' and all that? 'You never know what's gonna happen until you walk through those doors.'" _She could also mentally see herself slapping Don upside the head. Now, when it came right down to it, Megan wasn't really sure about the value her words had.

_Come on, Megan,_ she told herself again. _You're a psychologist. What can he say that you haven't heard a million times?_

Megan opened the glass door on the far end of the hall. It was a comfortable waiting room, with black leather chairs gathered around a black coffee table covered in magazines. The pretty receptionist looked up as Megan stepped into the room. "Hello," she said cheerfully. "Can I help you?"

"Uh, yeah, I'm here for an appointment with Dr. Bradford," Megan replied, crossing the room to the front desk.

"Name?" she asked, turning to the computer.

"Megan Reeves."

A door opened behind her, and a good-looking man stepped out. They studied one another for a moment, each trying to size the other up. "Agent Reeves?" he said finally.

"Dr. Bradford," she replied.

Bradford motioned toward his open door. "Come in, Agent Reeves."

Megan followed him into his spacious office. "What, no long leather couch?" she quipped.

Ignoring her, he motioned to one of the leather chairs. "Have a seat."

She shook her head and lowered herself into one of the three leather chairs in his office. Dr. Bradford followed, his dark eyes never leaving her face. Megan crossed her legs and folded her arms in front of her chest. "You're a profiler," he said, flipping open her file.

"You already knew that."

"Of course I did. I have your file. I talked to Agent Eppes."

"Yeah, that figures."

"Then surely you must know you're sitting in a classic defensive position." The corners of his mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

Megan glanced down and chuckled softly. "Yeah. I guess so."

"You got something to be defensive about?"

She shook her head, allowing tendrils of auburn hair to fall over her shoulders. "I think that's your job."

"But you're a psychologist too."

"Somewhat." She uncrossed her arms and let them fall gently on her lap, but her shoulders remained hunched over, as if she was carrying a huge weight.

"You haven't been ordered here by a superior. You seem to have most of your life together. I guess I just can't figure out why you, of all people, show up for a therapy session."

Megan rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Look, I'm here of my own volition."

"I know you are. Which means you know something's wrong."

She didn't reply. She stared at the window in front of her, her mind off somewhere else.

"I pulled your records before you came," Bradford said, pulling a file off his desk. "You've received counseling before. About a year ago?"

_Even though Megan was groggy, she could feel the blade draw across her skin. Hot blood poured down her arm, making her skin sticky. It was a deep cut, and it throbbed with the amount of blood coming out of her body. Brachial artery. Her time was short. Her head swam as her body lost its life-force ounce by ounce._

_She could vaguely hear the door bang open, the knob creating a huge hole in the plaster wall. "Megan?" Don's voice sounded far away. "Oh, God. She's bleeding out. Get a paramedic here!" His hand came in contact with her cold, clammy skin. "Hang on, sweetie," he whispered. It was the last thing she heard before she faded into blissful unconsciousness._

"Agent Reeves?"

Bradford's voice brought her back to the present. She looked up at him as she fingered the scar on her upper arm through her shirt, green eyes unreadable. "Yeah. It was after the Crystal Hoyle shooting."

He glanced down at her file. "It seemed to go pretty well."

Megan inhaled deeply. "It did. I got through the whole thing just fine. Look, Doc, I honestly don't know why I called you yesterday. Maybe this whole thing is a mistake."

"Maybe you realize you have some issues that need to be worked out."

"I know I have issues. I've known I have issues for years."

"What kind of issues?"

"_I don't care, Dad!" A twenty-four-year-old Megan crossed her arms as her father slammed his fist down in frustration._

"_For the last time, you're not joining the FBI! You're a girl, Megan. You don't belong in a place like that."_

_Megan's green eyes blazed with anger. "I've spent my entire life being the son you never had. And now you tell me that I'm still not good enough?"_

"_That's… that's…" He shook his head. "That's not the point. Why can't you be more like your sisters? They have families, kids, stable jobs."_

_She shook her head in frustration. "You'll never understand me." With that, she stormed out and never looked back._

Megan sighed. "My dad."

Bradford raised his eyebrows. "Did he hurt you?"

"No, no," she replied hastily. "Not physically anyway." She looked at Bradford tiredly. "I was never really good enough for my dad. Three older sisters, and I was his last chance for a son."

"You tried to make up for something you couldn't control."

Megan nodded and swept a strand of hair out of her face. "I played every sport I could, and I was good at them. I could sink almost every three-pointer I tried." She smiled as Bradford chuckled. "But I still wasn't good enough. So I acted out in high school. And even then, it didn't work. When I told him I was going to join the FBI," she shook her head and smiled wanly, "he told me I didn't belong. He wanted me to be more like my sisters."

"So your entire life's work was destroyed." Bradford nodded in understanding.

"The last time I spoke to him was the day before I left for grad school to get my masters in forensic psychology."

Bradford's eyebrows went up again. "Over ten years ago."

Megan nodded again.

"How many people have you told about this?"

She shrugged. "Quite a few. We had a case about a year and a half ago, and it kind of came out."

Bradford gave her a gentle look. "Then we both know that's not your only issue. You wouldn't have come." He watched as Megan's gaze returned to his office window. "How is your love life?" he asked, switching gears. Her eyes never left the window. "Come on, Agent," he said, grinning. "A beautiful woman like you doesn't remain single for very long."

"Nope," she finally replied, a touch of disdain slipping into her voice. "Let's just say that my love life is on hold at the moment."

"You're worried about it."

"Not it. Him." She glanced at Bradford, who was waiting for her to continue. "We don't exactly have a lot of time for relationships, you know."

"FBI agents? Your boss told me."

"I bet he did. So when we get a relationship, we try to make it work. It helps us to deal."

"You talk to him about what's going on."

"And if he's gone, there's just no one to talk to."

Bradford's eyes lit up with understanding. "You have something major to say, and there's no one you can turn to." He looked at her for a minute. Her body posture was heavy, as if there was a great weight on her shoulders. She looked ten years older than she was. Something life-altering had happened. "What happened, Megan?" he asked softly.

A lone tear appeared at the corner of her eye, but she didn't answer.

"Did something happen to your boyfriend?"

Megan harrumphed. "No. He went into space and couldn't handle coming back, so he's at a monastery."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

"No, it does. But I have some more… pressing matters to deal with." She shook her head as his eyebrows went up again. "I don't know if I can do my job anymore."

Bradford leaned back in his chair and allowed her confession to set in. "Why do you think that?"

"I know things now. Things that I wish I didn't know."

"About what?"

Megan got up and went over to the window, staring thoughtfully into the waiting room. "About people I work with. About the FBI. About teamwork and friendships."

"What happened, Agent Reeves?"

"_Agent Reeves." Megan looked up to see CIA Agent Daniel McCall coming toward her, carrying a piece of paper._

"_Agent McCall," she replied, giving him a tired smile._

"_We have some names for you. Thought you might want to look at them." He handed her the paper he was carrying._

"_Sure. Thanks." As McCall's footsteps faded down the hallway, she perused the paper. Her eyes widened when she came to one name, about halfway down the list. _Colby Granger, FBI._ She scanned the rest of the paper before coming back to his name. 'That's impossible,' she thought. 'Colby would never…'_

She sighed and wiped her left eye. "About six weeks ago, I was sent on an assignment for the DOJ. I didn't really have a choice in the matter. They thought that… that the United States and its allies might have been infiltrated by spies from our enemies. France, Britain, Russia… and our government agencies. I was supposed to profile suspects from intelligence agencies."

"And?"

An ignored tear slipped down her cheek. "And one of those spies is a friend. A member of my team."

Bradford's dark eyes widened in surprise. "Did you know this when you came back?"

"I had heard some things. I didn't want to believe them. He was… different when I came back. I suspected something was up." She sighed again. "It was confirmed later."

"So you're asking where that leaves you."

"And Don and David… and even Colby."

Bradford leaned back in his chair again, his eyes never leaving Megan. "You have had a rough year."

Megan chuckled mirthlessly. "I guess that's the understatement of the year."

"This agent's betrayal hit you pretty hard."

She brushed the window glass with the tip of a finger. "He was a friend. A good friend. He was a former Army ranger, and he always talked about 'Duty, honor, country'." Megan finally looked back at Bradford. "I thought I knew where his loyalties were. I guess it challenges some of my own beliefs."

"About what?"

"About whether what I'm doing is worth it. About whether I really am a part of something good." She hesitated, unsure if she should continue. Bradford nodded, urging her to complete her thought. "About my abilities as a profiler."

"Why should you doubt your abilities as a profiler?"

"I couldn't see!" she replied, all her hurt and anger bubbling up. "I couldn't see when it was right in front of me! What makes me think that I can keep profiling strangers if I can't see what's going on in front of my face?"

"Sometimes even the best psychologist can't see when they're dealing with matters of their own hearts," Bradford said thoughtfully. "You were friends with this agent. You trusted your life to him. And, if I read you correctly, you think that there might be something behind his betrayal."

Megan wiped another tear from her cheek. "The Colby I know wouldn't just become a traitor like that. Of course, I don't even know if I do know him anymore."

"As far as wondering if what you're doing is worth it, how many people have you saved since you've been in the FBI?"

Her brow furrowed. "I don't know."

"Too many to count, right?"

The corners of her mouth turned up slightly. "Yeah. I guess so."

"Wouldn't you say that saving people is good?"

Nodding, Megan replied, "Definitely."

Bradford spread his hands and grinned. "Would you like to hear my diagnosis, Agent Reeves?"

Megan laughed, the first real laugh he'd heard from her in an hour. "Sure, why not, Doc?"

"You've had some bumps in the road. But the fact that you're here tells me that you really want to do something about the way you're feeling. You know you can't take it anymore, and the stress of your job and knowing what you know is pulling you down. But you're reaching out for someone to pull you back up. And that's a good thing." He softly closed the black leather notebook he'd been writing in. "You're doing something good, Megan. You have enough insight in yourself to know that you have issues, and you're working to fix them."

"What about Colby?"

Bradford sighed. "Just wait. Find out what's going on there." He placed her file on his desk and stood up. "Did this therapy session help?"

Megan smiled. "You know, I wasn't sure if it would. But it definitely did." She stuck out her hand. "Thank you, Doc."

He took her proffered hand and gently patted it. "It was a pleasure, Agent Reeves."

Five minutes later, Megan stepped out into the bright Los Angeles sun. She grinned as she slid on her sunglasses. The weight on her shoulders, the weight of a thousand cares, was gone.


End file.
